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Scene 6 - Coggle Diagram
Scene 6
Summary
- After midnight, Mitch & Blanche return. Evening hasn't been successful
- Mitch feels he has been dull
- Blanche invites him for a drink
- At first the conversation remains awkward in spite of Blanche's feverish attempts at gaiety
- It seems that the best Mitch can manage is to talk about his weight
- Blanche tells Mitch that Stanley does all he can to offend her
- When Mitch asks Blanche her age, she avoids answering by asking why he wants to know
- When he says his mother asked → lead to more serious discussion
- Mitch talking about his ailing mother & Blanche of the suicide of her husband after she found him in bed with another man
- Mitch, deeply moved, embraces Blanche as she weeps
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Blanche's contradictions
- Occasionally Blanche seems to risk losing what she at times she wants
- While pretending to be in a Paris Cafe she offers to sleep with him, but in French which he wouldn't understand
- When speaking about how a gentlemen should behave she rolls her eyes, self-mockingly, knowing that he can't see her face
- on both occasions she risks being found out by Mitch
- Endangers her hard won position with Mitch in the preceding scene with the young man, as if she wishes to avoid the dull safety of marriage
- close of scene, humble gratitude is sincere
- Puzzles & engages readers sympathy
- Blanche is complex, contradictory character - making her successful as a focus for drama
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Musical motifs
- lowkey mood of scene underlined by the absence of the blue piano
- Polka music plays an important part in Blanche's revelations about her husband's suicide & reasons for it
- Polka has been heard before as an indirect reference to Blanche's past
- Now we realise its full meaning
- in order for music to be effective the audience must remember that Blanche alone can hear it, with gunshot that brings it to the end
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Blanche dares to hope
- At the end of the scene, when Mitch embraces Blanche, she suddenly feels hopeful exclaiming, 'Sometimes - there's God - so quickly'
- Typical of the dramatic lines with which several scenes end
- comes with a sudden outpouring of emotion from Blanche, mixed with hope & gratitude
- She's confided in Mitch & her honesty has been rewarded
- Reference to God isn't characteristic of Blanche, she takes comfort in men not religion
- wording suggests that most of the time God does not really exist for her, but at time like this her prayer has been answered